


Let Nothing You Dismay

by honeyheffron



Category: The Beatles (Band)
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, they're so sweet on each other it's atrocious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:21:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28446822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeyheffron/pseuds/honeyheffron
Summary: In the wee hours of Christmas morning, Ringo can't sleep. The next logical step, of course, is to build a gingerbread house.
Relationships: George Harrison/Ringo Starr
Comments: 6
Kudos: 15
Collections: Starrison Holiday Gift Exchange 2020





	Let Nothing You Dismay

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KeiserFranz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KeiserFranz/gifts).



> happy starrison-mas, my dear KeiserFranz! i hope your holidays were very merry and that this fic brings you some joy <33

There is no soft wintertide sun, when George startles awake, not a single golden splash across their sheets—which are suspiciously cold, he notes, blearily glancing over at Ringo’s side of the bed, lamentably empty.

There comes a second crash down the hall, and just above the din George catches Ringo’s miserable _“Jesus wept.”_ He’d laugh if the clock on their bedside table hadn’t just informed him it is, indeed, bloody four in the morning on Christmas day.

 _If I didn’t love him,_ George thinks, _I’d kill him, probably._ (It’s a lie. There’s not one world out there where they don’t endure each other’s insufferable habits through a pair of lovesick grins, he’s sure.)

George swipes a woolly afghan from the foot of the bed, sluggishly cocoons himself, and stumbles down the hallway. One lone light shines from the kitchen. George turns the corner, and there stands Ringo, center of the holiday hurricane, bedhead and all, pots strewn about his feet, and a slightly dusty build-your-own gingerbread house kit held sheepishly in his hands.

Ringo blinks. George blinks.

Ringo begins, “I—”

“No, no,” George shushes him softly, eyes like slits against the light. He doesn’t quite have the energy to hear how they got here. “Jus’… come back to bed, yeah?”

Ringo sighs, something heavy and somber. George straightens up with a frown. “All right, are we?”

“Couldn’t sleep, is all,” he explains. That’s nothing new; Ringo’s been an insomniac all his life. On good days, he’s just tired, a little slow. On bad ones, irritable, jittery, and restless. Terrible thing to wrestle with on Christmas, of course.

“I could make that tea you like?” George offers, “That posh chamomile shite?”

“See, was comin’ to make it for meself so I wouldn’t wake you, but then I saw this in the back of the cabinet,” Ringo holds up the gingerbread kit, “And I thought, y’know, it’d keep me busy, an’ I went to grab it but the pots all came down an’…” he shakes his head ruefully, “Ended up waking you anyway, didn’t I?”

“Hey, now,” George crosses the room, pots clinking as he steps carefully over them. He reaches over to pat Ringo’s cheek firmly, “No frownin’ on Christmas. Breakin’ me heart, you are. You want to make a gingerbread house, we’ll make a bloody gingerbread house, aye?” George smiles. Another clank of kitchenware interrupts him as he shifts his feet. “Uh, pots first, though.”

Ringo looks at him for a long moment, eyes glistening. He rocks forward to press a fond, grateful kiss to George’s mouth. George hums pleasantly under the attention.

“Too good to me, y’know?” Ringo says, “Puttin’ up with this all the time.”

“You’re a mess, son,” George agrees, teasing, “But so am I, and you’ve never complained.”

* * *

“I should tell you this kit’s probably been in that cabinet since _last_ Christmas,” George tells Ringo, as they’re unpacking the box’s contents at the kitchen table.

Ringo laughs, “Best not eat it, then.”

George pulls one of the little gumdrops out of a bag and throws it against the table. It makes a sound like a marble smacking concrete.

“Best not.”

* * *

“Bloody hell,” George grumbles, a bag of snow-white frosting in hand as their gingerbread roof caves in for the third time.

“You’ve killed the gingerbread children,” Ringo clicks his tongue, “Again.”

“Terrible father, I am.”

“Terrible architect, too.”

George flings a lob of frosting at him.

* * *

“By the way, this is your Christmas present. No returns.”

Ringo knocks his knee under the table. “Get on.”

* * *

“Did we forget to cut out a door?”

“...Fuck.”

* * *

The house is miraculously standing by the time they’ve finished with it, though it looks as though a whisper of breath in the wrong direction might be enough to send it toppling over again. The windows and door look like they were punched out rather than carved, and a mound of frosting across the roof displays a mess of sprinkles, gumdrops, and peppermints, all of which are gradually slipping down its incline. It’s a disaster.

“Likely the ugliest gingerbread house in all of Liverpool,” Ringo beams.

Sunrise is slipping in through the windows, the pale, familiar amber of the bleak midwinter. As George wraps his arms about Ringo’s midsection and pulls him close, he’s sure every inch of that brilliant light brightens with Ringo’s smile.

* * *

They soon curl up on the settee, tucked beneath the afghan George stole from their bed, eyes heavy, hands cozy and tangled. Ringo’s head rests comfortably in the junction between George’s neck and shoulder. A Sinatra record sings low in the corner about mistletoe and holly.

George swipes a thumb across Ringo’s knuckles, pausing to tap each point of bone, gentle rhythm building. “Better now?”

“Mhm,” Ringo murmurs, voice crackling with fatigue. “Sorry to drag you into my mess. On Christmas, too, and all.”

George rolls his eyes. “The only mess in here is that bloody thing we’re callin’ a gingerbread house, and we _both_ made that.”

Ringo doesn’t say another word. In the silence, George’s heart seizes up; Ringo doesn’t have anything to be guilty about. He’s got to know that. George would have him through every sleepless night and twinkling sunrise.

George taps Ringo’s chin, coaxing his head upright. “What’d I say about frownin’ on Christmas?”

Ringo’s gaze softens, ice blue and always so earnest. George moves in to trail tender kisses across his cheeks, the way he knows Ringo likes. “Don’t be daft,” he murmurs, “I love you. The rest doesn’t matter.”

Ringo kisses him again, slower this time, warm like firelight. “Love you back,” he hums, “Reckon the best gift I ever got was you.”

George shakes his head, flushing pink even so. “Soft lad.”

Later, there will be guests, presents, lights that gleam, no shortage of joy—but here, on a hazy Christmas morning, they could ask for nothing more than to hold close the steady, boundless grace of one other.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr at [honeyheffron](https://honeyheffron.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
